By Shannon Mccaffrey
Associated Press
ATLANTA ó When Newt Gingrich last held political office ěSeinfeldî was a top-rated TV show. The Spice Girls ruled the pop charts. And pagers ó not iPhones ó were the must-have tech device.
Now, as the 67-year-old former U.S. House speaker enters the race for president, he faces the challenge of drawing on his rich resume of experience while rebranding himself for a restless Republican Party that seems hungry for a fresh face to take on the youthful and hip President Barack Obama.
In a two-minute online video Wednesday, Gingrich explained the rationale for his candidacy, saying he has the experience ěto return America to hope and opportunity.î He cited his work with President Ronald Reagan and said he had balanced the budget and reformed welfare as House speaker.
ěWeíve done it before, we can do it again,î Gingrich said. ěThereís a much better American future ahead with more jobs, more prosperity, a better health system, longer lives, greater independent living and a country that is decentralized under the 10th Amendment with power once again back with the American people and away from the Washington bureaucracy.î
The video showed how heís trying to balance both the past and the future as he seeks the White House.
ěItís the crux of his campaign,î former Gingrich aide Rich Galen says. ěCan he escape being a symbol of the past?î
Or, rather, can whatís old become new again?
Among oldest
The image that Gingrich must shake is so deeply ingrained in America that it made its way into a recent ěSaturday Night Liveî sketch.
ěI love the í90s!î says a Gingrich impersonator who blurted out just that one sentence.
The former Georgia congressman will be among the oldest candidates ó if not the oldest ó in a still-forming Republican field of politicians with far more recent political experience. Among those considering bids are Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, two darlings of the ultraconservative tea party movement.
Nostalgia may not be completely troublesome for him.
The economy was humming in the 1990s when he held the top position in the House of Representatives. And the world seemed a safer place before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But Gingrich himself has a mixed legacy from those days.
Viewed by many as a masterful grassroots strategist and message manipulator, he led Republicans to control of the House for the first time in four decades. Still, heís remembered as much for his stormy fall ó he faced ethics complaints and later resigned ó as for his triumphant rise. And questions about his temperament still surface.
Pitching a tantrum
One of the best-known images of Gingrich from his days as speaker was the New York Daily News cover depicting him in a diaper pitching a tantrum after being barred from sitting up front with President Bill Clinton on Air Force One while returning from Israel. And his latest outbursts have raised eyebrows, including when he compared a mosque that was to open near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers in New York to Nazis putting a sign next to the Holocaust Museum.
As he geared up for a campaign, Gingrich allies have privately urged him to tone down the bomb-throwing rhetoric, arguing he should strive to be seen as the adult in the room presenting the battle-tested big ideas rather than a conservative firebrand who flies off the handle.
ěIf he can just get that Charlie Sheen self-discipline thing under control, Newtís the type of candidate who has the potential to really fire up the room and fire up the base,î said former Republican strategist Dan Schnur, who now runs a political think tank at the University of Southern California.
Because Gingrich has shown a propensity to lose his cool, Schnur says, any slip on the campaign trail will be magnified: ěHeís going to face an additional level of scrutiny.î
Facebook, Twitter
In recent weeks, Gingrich has toned down the bombast and kept a relatively low profile. Heís set to give an interview Wednesday night on Fox News Channel, explaining his rationale for a candidacy. Heíll give his first speech as a full-fledged candidate at the Georgia Republican Partyís convention in Macon on Friday.
His candidacy will hardly be a retro affair; he disclosed his presidential run using Facebook and Twitter.
His campaign manager, Rob Johnson, largely shunned bricks-and-mortar offices when he ran Republican Rick Perryís 2010 gubernatorial bid in Texas, relying heavily instead on social networks.
And Gingrich himself is an avid consumer of new technology. His tax-exempt conservative group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, has tapped online dollars with huge success. Aides say Gingrich is the author of his own tweets. He also frequently promotes the need for online medical records and cutting-edge advances in energy.
ěThis is not someone trapped in the past,î says his longtime political adviser, Joe Gaylord. ěHeís always embraced whatís new.î
Will a Gingrich reinvention stick with voters?
ëNot 1990s vintageí
He has been an all-but-declared candidate for months now. And polls show Republicans unenthused ó if not dissatisfied ó with their presidential options. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is being pressured to run. Some Republicans also continue to court New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie even though he has said repeatedly he wonít seek the White House.
Republicans seem to be searching for someone that inspires the same excitement among the party base. Itís a thirst that seems especially pronounced in tea party groups.
ěI like Newt, I do. But the issues we are facing are not 1990s vintage,î said Mark Skoda, founder of a Memphis, Tenn., tea party organization. ěAs we saw with Barack Obama, thereís a desire for something fresh, for something new and dynamic.î
Gingrich himself knows that if the race becomes about his history, heís unlikely to go very far. His past includes two divorces, marital infidelity and ethics allegations.
As he put it to one interviewer: ěIf the primary concern of the American people is my past, my candidacy would be irrelevant.î
Heíll find out in the coming months whether thatís the case.